


Calm

by lalejandra



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Transformative Works Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-20
Updated: 2006-04-20
Packaged: 2019-07-14 11:22:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16039475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalejandra/pseuds/lalejandra
Summary: Ronon embraces the calm.





	Calm

Ronon doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't even know how to tell people he doesn't want to talk about it. He has spent years not thinking about it and getting accustomed to it -- to suddenly be in a place where -- well -- he just -- It's not anyone's business, and he's not interested. Everyone in Atlantis wants to know about his alien childhood.

Instead of talking to them, he goes for long runs, until he can't breathe, until his chest hurts, until he has to lean over, his hands on his shins, and take long breaths, the cleansing ones, in through his nose and out through his mouth, to create a circle of calm through his body and the air.

"Everywhere the leather of my shoe touches is my home," he chants. "If the leather of my shoe touches the sand of a shore, I have touched the whole shore. If the leather of my shoe touches the dirt of a forest, I have touched the whole forest. If the leather of my shoe touches the stone of a street, I have touched the whole village. If I breathe the air of the world, I have breathed in the whole world."

And then he runs again.

**

Ronon remembers crying. He remembers his mother crying, his sisters crying. He remembers being taken, hard hands on his arms. He remembers not understanding what was happening. He remembers being put into a hovercraft with all the other boys from his village.

He doesn't remember: the first nights, his mother's name, his sisters' faces, basic training.

He remembers getting haircuts. Every week his head was shaved. He remembers missing his mother's soft hair.

He can't remember what her hair feels like now.

**

The calming training was the hardest. it still is. Ronon doesn't want to be calm -- calm gets you killed. That's what he's learned. Calm isn't enough to save you from the Wraith.

But what _is_ enough to save _anyone_ from the Wraith? So far the only thing that's worked are big fucking guns.

Ronon knows he's getting soft, living in Atlantis. His reflexes aren't what they used to be. It's not enough to be better than everyone in Atlantis -- he has to be better than the Wraith, and he's not anymore. He's not anything anymore but a soldier, just like he used to be. Unflinching in the face of danger, willing to put his life on the line to save anyone else -- he's not so sure that's who he wants to be anymore. Being a Runner had its upside -- never stopping, never taking a breath, never letting calm flow through him.

He sits with his back against one of Atlantis's warm walls, staring at the ocean. He's trapped -- nowhere to run, and he can't pilot a jumper, and if the Wraith come... he's trapped.

They're all trapped.

But he embraces calm, for real, without flinching, the way he'd fight the Wraith, and lets his body slow down. He feels the drift of air over his skin, all his muscles relaxing, and his breathing slow and alter. And then he feels nothing. He is calm.

The Wraith aren't coming _tonight_.

  



End file.
